At the Tinker Lab, we take pride in honoring Lewis H. Latimer's great legacy and contributions to science, technology, and American life through hands-on projects that combine art and science education.

This March, it is all about SHAPES at the Tinker Lab. We are inspired by Lewis H. Latimer himself, who we know was an expert draftsman which made him an especially great innovator and inventor and valuable collaborator for Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell.

Our goal was to create designs made entirely of simple geometric shapes. To do this, we first looked at some of the patents and drafts that Latimer drew to see if we could find and recognize shapes to get our discussion going. The students immediately recognized various shapes and patterns from Latimer’s draft and began thinking about their own designs and the shapes they will need.

In the end, students were able to decide motifs or patterns they wanted to create and think about and problem solve how to realize the designs using the geometric shapes we found and discussed.